I put Middle Earth Journal in hiatus in May of 2008 and moved to Newshoggers.I temporarily reopened Middle Earth Journal when Newshoggers shut it's doors but I was invited to Participate at The Moderate Voice so Middle Earth Journal is once again in hiatus.

Sunday, November 11, 2007

Tim Russert doesn’t vote in Iowa

Now I've never had much use for Obama and he is certainly not doing anything that would make me believe I was wrong when I described him as an empty suit. Now he is undermining one of the few progressive victories the last few years - Social Security.Obama: Tax more income for Soc Sec

WASHINGTON - Democrat Barack Obama said Sunday that if elected he will push to increase the amount of income that is taxed to provide monthly Social Security benefits.

Obama and other Democratic presidential candidates previously have signaled support for this idea.

But during an interview on NBC's "Meet the Press," Obama said subjecting more of a person's income to the payroll tax is the option he would push for if elected president.

He objected to benefit cuts or a higher retirement age.

"I think the best way to approach this is to adjust the cap on the payroll tax so that people like myself are paying a little bit more and people who are in need are protected," the Illinois senator said.

"That is the option that I will be pushing forward."

Now there really isn't anything wrong with what he is proposing but why in the hell is he talking about it. Progressives managed to convince the American people that Social Security was not a big problem in spite of fear mongering on the part of the Bush Administration and Republicans who simply want to kill it. The Democratic primary campaign is not a place to bring it up again. As Paul Krugman says:

The great Social Security debate of 2005 was a seminal moment for American progressives. Conventional fiscal wisdom in the Beltway was that the aging population is THE big problem — when the truth is that grim long-run fiscal projections mainly reflect projected health care costs. And conventional political wisdom was that the Bush administration’s fear-mongering on the issue would work.But a determined defense by progressives in the media, on the blogs, and in Congress beat back one spurious argument after another, while the American people made it clear that they really want a program that guarantees a basic retirement income that doesn’t depend on the Dow. And Social Security survived.All of which makes it just incredible that Barack Obama would make obeisance to fashionable but misguided Social Security crisis-mongering a centerpiece of his campaign. It’s a bad omen; it suggests that he is still, despite all that has happened, desperately seeking approval from Beltway insiders.

5 comments:

I don't know if you watched or not since you didn't say. Obama says he believes it is his job to suggest solutions to important problems that he sees. I don't think he was pandering to Russert and I guess he disagrees with the "progressives" you refer to about whether there is a problem or not. We'll see if his "straight talk" is politically viable.But that's how he says he wants to operate as a candidate.

I think you nailed this one Ron. Talking about SS, as he has, only raises concerns about a broken SS (from Dems) and a tax increase (from GOPers). Far better to let this one alone, as fixing it requires only a minor adjustment while far more frightening middle class economic issues loom on the horizon.

Radical liberal loons the kind of Bill Maher and others, in their usual devious conduct of trying to spin on the real threat of the western society, like (or shall I say liked?) to use ‘global warming’, as the ‘real threat’, not ISLAMO - FASCISM. My advice to the militant left from Rosie O’Donnell to the backward “MoveOn” & other left-behind “progressive” fanatics, hurry up, “find” some “other” threat before you are left out to dry by the RIGHT TRUTH.

That very hypocritical radical left that likes to blame the right for being “fear mongers”, now, Who’s the real fear mongering block, and on EMPTY false fake “fears”, How dare they???

There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.